This early beta was found on an Xbox debug kit. From what I can tell, the closest approximation for the build date is January 6th, 2006. The game includes 3 different .XBE files, and this seems to be the last date. If it holds true, this build is 3 months after the retail release on the Xbox, and 9 months before the PSP version. My theory is that this build is an early version of Rush for the PSP, running some hybrid code on the Xbox during the porting process. This is among the strangest of the titles that I have received over the years. It runs, mostly, in a small window, which looks to be PSP-sized, which, when you also look at the Playstation buttons, supports my theory. The game is also 1.4 gigs, which would fit on a UMD. Video : http://ptoponline.com/?p=567
Really interesting stuff, but why on the XBOX? Just seems very odd. Didn't LA RUSH get released for PS2? You'd think they'd just port that over instead.
Why on xbox? They might be doing some memory usage optimizations before started porting to psp. Or something like this.
Ill be doing more research into whats actually going to make it crash. I need to pick up a retail copy though.
I have some photos somewhere, as you can see a guy who plays Painkiller Beta on debugkit and also in a very small window size, as pictured above.
Id be curious to see it. It is not unheard of to see a game running at a lesser resolution in development, but since this one is after the game was released, and with the PSP name and buttons, I think my theory is relatively spot on. Unless of course Painkiller had a PSP version in the works as well
It would be nice to compare to the psp version, also the name Rush matches, since the psp version didn´t use the L.A title, but the final version use the same font from san francisco rush. Maybe the devkits had a 64mb memory, so i think that they decided to use the xbox port, that would be easier to port i guess, but in february 2006 the pc port was released. A port of painkiller was meant to be released on ps2 and psp but both got cancelled, i believe was the hell wars xbox port.
That's awesome, gotta love Borman's site. Very interesting indeed, it give us an insight on how companies usually handle ports to other platforms. Just got to ask, why isn't the video on youtube? Did you quit it after being spammed by obssessive people or what?
People can be assholes on YouTube. If that's the reason why Borman stopped using it, then I don't blame him. Anyway, it's better that it's off YouTube anyway, his site is good enough for me.
It could be because the PSP had a higher resolution than the PS2, so they used the HD capable Xbox. But I really don't particularly know.
